Il était une forêt by Luc Jacquet, or the Art of Documentary Storytelling

Abstract

After the international success of La marche de l’empereur, Luc Jacquet partners with the famous botanist and activist Francis Hallé to direct in 2013 the documentary Il était une forêt, with which the viewers are immersed into the fantastic universe of primary tropical forests. Drawing on the work of Estelle Zhong and Bénédicte Meillon, we propose to demonstrate that the documentary Il était un forêt is one of those “eco-sensitive” works (Zhong, 2023) that re-enchant (Meillon, 2018) Western imagination in its relationship with the non-human. To do so, this essay first locates this documentary in the context of the emergence of the French eco-documentary, which brought filmmakers and scientists together to raise awareness of the ecological cause. Second, the essay looks into the narrative and aesthetic devices borrowed from the genres of the fantastic and the marvelous, which make this work an authentic “tale-documentary” to the delight of young and old alike.